


Survival of the Closest

by Sola_Ircadia



Category: Tekken
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2018-12-04 08:10:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 16,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11551089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sola_Ircadia/pseuds/Sola_Ircadia
Summary: They are the sum of their parts and everything else.(Kazuya/Lee, 25 themes edition)





	1. Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> So I’ve been having one metric hell of a time trying to figure out how to write these two properly, so more than anything, this is practice. Hopefully some feedback will help me in the future?
> 
> Ideally, this’ll update roughly twice a week/more frequently if I feel like it. Each installment will be anywhere from a few hundred to just about a thousand words, so they’re not that impressive, but I’m just trying to feel things out here. I really love their dynamic in all forms and would prefer to not only write for it more, but to also do it some level of justice.
> 
> Anyway, happy reading! Have a wonderful day!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've never really thought about it.

 

For all its softly-spoken promises, even the mere thought of something better is irrelevant. Perhaps there is some place out there that’s not quite as horrible as where they are now – perhaps there is some other level to existence. Perhaps his poor parents are there, overcome and unaware. (They never stood a chance, really.) Perhaps his dear mother and loving grandfather are there, slain and dismayed. (They never stood a chance, either.)

 

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, but it is all of little consequence to them now.

 

Because now is all of this: training, fighting, surviving. Training to be stronger, to be faster, to be infinitely more perfect and precise and terrifying. If they are to train and become their best, then they must fight, and fight they do. Fighting is grating against each other at every possible moment, it is disguising all emotion for fear of the consequences, it is screaming into their pillows at night so no one else even has the chance to hear of their frustration. Fighting is how they survive, not just how they train. Even here, they must fight to survive, must fight every fleeting second of every passing day for one reason or another, bound as they are to this opulent lair of a monster. Side by side, they are surviving.

 

And in the midst of surviving what will never be heaven, they fight each other.

 

“See you in hell, Kazuya,” Lee Chaolan snarls, eleven years old all the angrier for it. It’s a routine they’re both far too familiar with, and he punctuates his words with a vicious snap-kick that sends his adopted brother sprawling to the floor. It’s a short-lived victory, much like everything else in this wretched place, but it’s nothing that he hasn’t already prepared himself for. He knows well enough by now that letting your guard down is one of the absolute worst things you can do in a fight – or ever, really.

 

Especially when someone like Kazuya is in the picture.

 

The boy in question pushes to his feet with some difficulty, dark eyes trained on his opponent as he searches intently for an opening and tries not to lose his focus so soon. He just turned twelve not all that long ago, but he’ll never look quite as old as he feels inside. Kazuya Mishima seen things that are impossible to comprehend, and even Lee – silver, scrappy, street-hardened Lee – cannot possibly know or empathize with the kind of torment he’s endured. It is this experience that makes him so much stronger than his adopted brother, and the frozen rage of his glare carries the weight of that understanding. Lee is undeterred, accustomed to Kazuya’s silent threats. That will change.

 

“I’ll send you there first.” Kazuya doesn’t say much, but when he does bother to say something, he usually means it. “So prepare yourself.”

 

It’s almost a joke. After all, they’re already in hell.

 


	2. Risk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The life they live is the farthest thing from conventional.

 

The first thing he registers is the ghostly feeling of someone touching his face. It’s oddly soothing, despite the fact that he generally dislikes being touched, and he relaxes for the moment.

 

The second thing he registers is the widespread state of sheer discomfort and pain that his entire body seems to be in, and he scrunches his nose in displeasure. The phantom touch disappears, along with the warmth it had brought, and he misses it. He tries to move his arm and a shock of agony bolts through him.

 

“Fuck!”

 

His eyes open and he jerks forward, his chest meeting someone’s firm hand before he moves too far. White sheets, blank walls – the infirmary. He bites back a hiss of dissatisfaction. _Great._

 

“Don’t make it worse.”

 

Lee gapes, unable to hide his surprise.

 

“Kazuya?”

 

His brother regards him with a carefully neutral expression, seemingly searching for something. His hand is still against his chest.

 

“...Kazuya?” He ventures again, softer this time. His throat hurts, and Kazuya seems...strange. The fact that he’s here and not off elsewhere working is bizarre enough as it is, let alone the fact that he almost appears...what? What is it?

 

“Down.” Kazuya says quietly, and Lee complies, too tired and in too much pain to argue. Once he’s settled back against the pillows, his brother draws his hand away, and Lee has to concentrate to avoid protesting the lack of contact. Strange. Perhaps there are some drugs left in his system.

 

“...what happened?” he manages. Kazuya won’t look at him.

 

“Assassin.” He says briefly, studying his hands. “I took care of them.”

 

Lee makes an affirmative sound in the back of his throat, acknowledging the incident without much fuss, although his mind is reeling. He’s in here because of an assassin? The concept itself is the farthest thing from foreign – they’ve dealt with so many people trying to kill them that they’ve lost count – but none of them have ever actually gotten this close. Lee curses inwardly. He must be losing his touch.

 

“Shoulder?” He asks, and Kazuya nods. How terribly rude of them. “They missed, then.”

 

“Your instincts must’ve kicked in,” Kazuya explains. “The impact still knocked you over the railing, but you moved in time.”

 

Ah. He sort of remembers, now – they’d been surveying one of the cargo carriers, and he’d been complaining to Kazuya about...something or other, he couldn’t remember, and it probably didn’t matter. The sun was bright, the wind lively, the ocean blue and huge before them...he’d been distracted by the good weather and small smile playing on his brother’s lips as he listened to him rant.

 

“I...fell into the sea?” It sounds absurd. “How did I get out?”

 

“That’s unimportant.” Kazuya speaks a little too quickly for Lee to just disregard that, but he humors him, at least for now.

 

“Huh.” He tests his movement just a bit, flinching slightly at the pain there. “Well, that’s a bitch.”

 

“If you hadn’t moved when you did...” Kazuya trails off, leaving Lee to finish the thought for himself. He cringes. It’s a testament to their fucked-up mindsets that this is more cause for embarrassment than it is for concern.

 

“Back to training for me, then.” He says, trying to be blithe about it, but Kazuya cuts him off with a glare. “What?”

 

“Do not make light of this.” He says sharply. There’s an odd, intense light in his dark eyes that Lee doesn’t recognize. “You could have died.”

 

The urge to taunt Kazuya for this bizarre behavior and seeming concern is so strong then, the words heavy on his tongue in all their unnecessary aggression, but he swallows them. _Like you care_. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. _As though you actually care about anyone at all._ Still, there’s no point in antagonizing him right now, especially when he has such an unfamiliar look on his face. He’s trying to hide it, but Lee knows him better than that.

 

_Is that...?_

 

Kazuya clears his throat, straightening up and getting to his feet, and the moment is gone.

 

“But yes.” His brother still won’t look at him. His walls are rising right before his eyes. “See to it that you mend your lack of awareness. I also fully expect you to continue working during your recovery period.”

 

Lee mentally counts to ten. _You’re fucked up right now. Don’t piss him off._

 

“Anything else?” He asks through gritted teeth. Kazuya has moved away by now, but he pauses in the doorway at Lee’s query, still and silent.

 

“No.” He finally says, and leaves. The truth, for all its potency, remains unsaid. 

 

_Don’t scare me like that again._

 


	3. Fortitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stubbornness goes a long way.

 

They both know perfectly well how they survived Heihachi in their childhood, and no amount of time can make them forget that. No matter their histories, no matter how much or how little they owe to their upbringing, this is something that they know with absolute certainty. They’re self-aware enough to figure that out.

 

The fact of the matter is that they’re both horribly stubborn people who don’t know when to quit.

 

It’s what kept them pushing forward as children. Neck-deep in misfortune and mistreatment, they persisted, willful and obstinate in the face of their insurmountable odds. If Kazuya hadn’t been so stubborn, he wouldn’t have climbed back up that cliff to take his revenge. If Lee hadn’t been so stubborn, he wouldn’t have survived his time on the streets. They would never have proven their worth as fighters. They would never have become two of the most powerful men in the world.

 

They would never have met.

 

It’s what makes them so compatible even as it drives them apart. They are the only ones who can keep up with each other, and even though it’s annoying as shit nowadays, there is something strangely relieving about having a side challenge they can always depend on. They’ve always had their agendas, and the other has more or less always gotten in their way. That’s just the way things are.

 

When they were young, it had usually pertained to smaller things, but it had also pertained to everything. In spite of the fact that Heihachi was their common enemy, they still fulfilled their roles as rivals and antagonists without much fuss to the contrary. Kazuya outgrew his childish penchant for petty tricks quicker than Lee did (who never really outgrew such tendencies at all), but he retained his desire to overpower the other boy in everything he did. Lee retaliated by exploiting Kazuya’s weaknesses, sometimes with frightening accuracy, working his way in and out of everything in his life until Kazuya wanted to rip his own skin off. They were too young to be so good at the things they did, and even now, both possess the cunning of those far older than they.

 

In a way, it’s what keeps them together.

 

They’ll never admit it, but they’ve no illusions regarding the irremovable gravity that tethers them together. Sure, it’s about as functional as the dance of a star and a black hole, but as spectacularly awful as the end result will inevitably be, it is a dance nonetheless. They draw each other endlessly closer, pull each other apart, and somehow never really think of putting distance between them.

 

Or rather, they do, but they don’t want to, because why would they? Why should they? This is how it’s always been, and as far as they’re concerned, it always will be this way. Once their plans are finished and their enemies disposed of, there’s nothing left standing but what their determination has built. It has only ever been the two of them in the end.

 

They’re stubborn enough to keep it that way.

 


	4. Empire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, if you don't know, now you know.

 

It’s their own history that has taught them to be so careful.

 

The Mishimas are a proud lot, and such arrogance has been their undoing many a time. They both watched it happen to their father, and even Kazuya’s paranoia couldn’t stop his own undoing at the end of it all. Only Lee had been left to learn from their mistakes – or so he had thought at the time.

 

Now they’re here, and the world is more or less theirs for the taking, but they still have to be careful. Kazuya is better than he used to be – infinitely less impulsive and dangerously patient – but he’s angry as he’s ever been, if not more. There’s a molten core within, deeper and more mysterious, but held in place with such unbearable pressure that going off the rails implies worldwide destruction. He’s a human bomb, and no one really wants to test him.

 

The exceptions to that rule, of course, are the men of the Mishima variety and their betters. Heihachi is old news by now, but he’s still relevant, and Lee dislikes him just as much as he always has. Let he and Kazuya break themselves against each other – he can easily trample the leftovers when the time comes. Jin has been a surprising new candidate, but only on principle. He’s a mere child with no clue playing dress-up in a poorly put-together suit, trying and failing to be the darkness that exists in the world when he’s still the farthest thing from it. A declaration of war right from the start, serious or not, is for amateurs. Lee would be disappointed in him if the stock market wasn’t going insane.

 

Still. He plays it safe. He keeps his hands clean, hides his cards, bides his time. Lee is a pragmatic man, preferring to find openings rather than make them, always inventing ways to keep things of this scale as neat and efficient as possible. There’s no use in coming out with guns blazing too soon. He knows how that works out. He’s watched three men fall prey to their own fates by now, and he really isn’t looking to be the one repeating history this time. That would make him just like them, after all, and he’s not.

 

He is everything they are and so much better.

 

Kazuya may have his grudge against Heihachi and his conflict with Jin, but he should know better than to think that Lee is just going to wait in line and do absolutely nothing. When they fall, as someone always does, there will be no one else that’s strong enough to stand in his brother’s way except for him.

 

_May the strongest man win, Kazuya._

 


	5. Traps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lee Chaolan is a clever little shit.

 

He’s spent as long as he can really remember knowing better than to trust Lee. At all. The man is as treacherous as they come, playing any manner of character so long as it suited his purpose, and even as a child, he could work his way out of and around anything, provided that he saw no merit in it. His words are a dance, quick and hard to follow; his thoughts are even more dangerous, hardly ever matching his expression and always several steps ahead of what he says (and he sure does say an awful lot). His backup plans have backup plans, and Kazuya has never known him to be anything less than alarmingly perceptive.

 

Dealing with him in combat situations is bad enough, but at least then he’s somewhat limited by his own (albeit still unreasonably skillful) physical abilities. In any other field of conflict, though, it’s damn near impossible to get the upper hand without overpowering him by an absurdly huge margin. Kazuya is the overpowering type, after all, and Lee knows that all-too well.

 

That’s probably why he played so many fucking pranks on him when they were kids.

 

Kazuya Mishima isn’t stupid. Not even a little bit. He knows the ins and outs of everything there is. He speaks more languages than most other people have the fingers to count them on. He can outfight, outsmart, and just generally outmatch almost anyone he goes up against, and even if it’s a stalemate, you can bet that the other person suffered heavier losses. He’s gotten very good at this game by now, not that Kazuya plays games. He’s not his father.

 

He’s not his brother, either, and the fact of that particular matter seems to be this: no matter how smart he is, it seems that Lee will always have just the tiniest, smallest, absolute _slightest_ edge on him. An edge, no matter how insignificant, is still an edge.

 

And Lee, exploitative, insufferable, _brilliant_ Lee, can work with that.

 

It makes him mad just thinking about it, and although that isn’t necessarily a hard thing to do, he has a special sort of fury reserved for his brother that isn’t often invoked. Kazuya remembers with sharp clarity all the times that Lee had outsmarted _and_ humiliated him they were children, his teasing laughter echoing in his head to this very day. He was so quick, so clever and irritating, and he ran circles – both literal and metaphorical – around his brother with seemingly no effort. The power he held over Kazuya was clearly very precious to him, as he abused it often and with little pretense.

 

Some things never change, and Lee’s penchant for screwing with him is definitely one of them. He seems to have risen above his grudges and injustices, but the Lee that Kazuya knows will always be a manipulative, slippery, _petty_ little shit, and no amount of money or false decorum will alter that fact. One can be as graceful as they are lethal, as horrible as they are beautiful, and Lee is all of that and so much more. Kazuya kind of hates it.

 

He must look extra miffed today – no small wonder, given his current train of thought – because his most recent secretary moves a little quicker than usual when they dart in to deliver the most important part of his mail. Kazuya eyes the neat stack of forms and envelopes as though as it has personally offended him before taking the one off the top. A cursory glance reveals it to be fairly nondescript, despite being marked as urgent, and he resists the all-too human urge to sigh. Fucking desk work.

 

Distracted as he is, he doesn’t get much warning.

 

One moment, he’s cutting the damn thing open, and the next second, there’s glitter. Purple and silver, exploding out of the envelope with unnatural force, tiny, sticky flakes of fucking _glitter_.

 

_Everywhere._

 

Kazuya blinks, and he can feel the wretched stuff caked in his eyelashes, sharp and impossible to ignore. His desk is showered in it, little bits still floating in the air, and he doesn’t even need to look at the defining mark on the inside of the envelope to know who somehow got this fucking joke through his supposedly secure systems.

 

The economic repercussions be damned, Lee and the entirety of his shitty company are fucking _dead_ the next time he sees them.

 


	6. Spilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s always something to clean up nowadays.

 

He’s at it again.

 

Lee tries not to listen, but he can’t help it – the sound is impossible to ignore. Loud, furious, intimidating, his brother shakes the walls with the force of his rage, an element of nature just barely constrained to a human body. Even better, he’s in fine form today, by the sounds of it. _Great_. That’s always tons of fucking fun to deal with. Hopefully he won’t have to clean anyone’s guts out of the carpet this time.

 

He briefly wonders who fucked up badly enough to incur his limitless ire on this particular go-round. Last time it had been Irvin, naturally, with his endless track record of second-rate performances, but that Williams girl has been making plenty of mistakes lately as well. (Ganryu doesn’t even count anymore – if Kazuya threw a temper tantrum every time that buffoon did something stupid, there wouldn’t even be a Mishima Zaibatsu left.) Add to that the miles-long lists of exhausted and terrified people employed within the Zaibatsu’s services – particularly of the public relations variety – and there’s no telling who Kazuya could be pissed at this time.

 

It’s an idle thought, though. Lee is just a little too used to this to give a damn anymore.

 

This is all it has been lately: Kazuya flying off the handle. He’s always been easily infuriated, an actual personification of anger itself rather than just an angry person, but this has gotten so far out of hand that it’s starting to become a drain on the company’s resources. An entirely new division has been organized for the sole purpose of repairing and replacing the parts of the establishment damaged by Kazuya’s fits of rage, and that doesn’t even _begin_ to cover the mental injuries suffered by the laypeople involved, employees or otherwise. As if the PR department doesn’t have enough to do already.

 

But his brother is out of control, and frankly, Lee is terrified. There’s an edge to him that wasn’t there before, dark and unfathomable, an extra tier of cruelty that he has no idea how to deal with. The moments of clarity are few and far between, and growing fewer by the day. Lee is so out of his element that he doesn’t even know what to do.

 

So he does nothing.

 

He does plenty, really, but not in the ways that really matter. Sure, he’s already alerting the PR department of the impending fiasco and steeling himself to approach the scene of inevitable carnage, but that’s nothing. Trying to reach out to him is a fool’s errand, not to mention a potential disaster, so he doesn’t even bother. It’s just business.

 

He’s just a personal assistant, after all, and cleaning up every last one of Kazuya’s fucking messes is evidently all he’s good for now.

 


	7. Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a metaphor.

 

Smooth, sleek, powerful – Kazuya watches the way his brother moves above him, intently taking note of everything through dark, half-lidded eyes. It’s been a while since they’ve gotten to do this – _too long_ , he thinks – and despite knowing that it really shouldn’t matter, it does. He can’t help it.

 

Lee’s skin is smooth beneath his fingertips, almost glowing in the candlelight, sleek muscles flexing and tensing beneath with even the slightest of movement. He’s so strong, so dangerous and powerful, but he comes to pieces when Kazuya holds him. It isn’t enough to take him down in combat or in training these days, because that would just be too easy. This sort of thing takes work, but that’s just fine. Kazuya enjoys the challenge, and besides. This is something that no one else gets to have – not anymore. Lee belongs to him now.

 

He’s concentrating, brow furrowed and eyes closed – his hands are on Kazuya’s shoulders, bracing himself as he slowly works his body up and down. He’s tight around him, almost painfully so, but it feels good. Too good. It’s unreasonable for this to be so important, but sometimes it’s all Kazuya can think about. He’ll be trying to work and he can’t get his mind off of the last time they were close. He’ll be in a meeting and it’ll be all he can do to pay attention to anyone but his brother. He’ll be at his desk, bored to death, and Lee will walk in and Kazuya won’t be able to ignore him.

 

The memory of his past frustrations drive his ambition, and he increases his pace, hands moving from Lee’s slender waist to his hips. He shifts his position, pushing up off the bed so his brother is cradled more securely in his lap, and Kazuya feels Lee’s fingers dig into his shoulders at the new proximity and slight angle change. He smirks. He’s not as hard to please as he likes to pretend. In some ways, neither of them are.

 

“Kazuya,” his brother gasps, his head tilting back as he begins to lose his composure. Kazuya presses forward, mouthing at the delicate skin of Lee’s throat, slamming him down harder onto his cock and making him moan. This is what he wants. He wants him falling to pieces, overwhelmed by the sensations, abandoning himself to what Kazuya has to give. It’s hard to get Lee to relinquish his control, but by now, Kazuya knows how to make it happen.

 

Sex is about power _and_ pleasure, after all.

 

Lee shudders against him, clinging to his arms, his shoulders, his back, hands shaking and nails digging deep. His own efforts are secondary to Kazuya’s new pace and he moans again, louder than before, burying his face in his brother’s neck. His breaths are hot against Kazuya’s skin, lips parted as he pants helplessly, another ragged cry tearing its way out of him as his brother thrusts up into his body. He can’t keep up, and Kazuya smirks.

 

(Lee has been wanting this, too.)

 

His panting is loud in Kazuya's ears and the dark-haired man crushes him against his body, sweat-soaked skin against his own. He runs his fingers through Lee’s silky hair, gripping him tightly, reveling in the sheer strength that he’s holding captive here in his arms. His brother is lethal and clever, sharp edges and honed experience – smooth, sleek, powerful – but this is where Kazuya has him and no one else. At the end of the day, this is the one thing that has always belonged to him. It will always belong to him. He has this, he has Lee, and nothing will get in the way of that anymore.

 

Lee arches up against his body, sinuous and beautiful, glazed eyes briefly visible before he shuts them again. A soft whimper, and then another – he trembles, gasps Kazuya’s name, and comes.

 

Kazuya can’t take his eyes off of him.

 


	8. Insanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like father, like poor, unprepared son.

 

Jin Kazama is a child, just like his mother before him. Well-intentioned, perhaps, and very noble, but also faithful and naïve and painfully ill-equipped for the momentous task at hand. He has no idea what he’s getting into, no idea what he’s doing now, and if Lee remembers correctly (and he always does) the poor bastard has _never_ had a clue. Dropped into the middle of Heihachi’s schemes with nary a bad bone in his body, he did exactly as he was told and became the best that he could be. He never once seemed to question it.

 

He never stood a fucking chance. Just like his mother.

 

It actually makes Lee a little sick to think about it, and seeing Jin now at the fifth tournament only reaffirms that. Sure, the kid is a fighter – that much is obvious. He’s still here, after all, still daring to return time and time again just to do what he needs to do. He pushes everyone else away and doesn’t look back. He always looks like he’s concentrating, too, which is almost comical. Jin Kazama isn’t naturally the angry type, so it seems to take some effort.

 

But he’s also running himself off the rails and he can only break himself against his betters so many times before he can’t get back up again. Lee doesn’t doubt his abilities (a lot of these kids are way too strong for their own good) but as much as they’ve saved his life, they’re also getting him into trouble. It’s just terrible. He’s too good to be this bad.

 

Kazuya, for all of his unending torment and demons and struggles, flourished (to some degree) under the pressure. He learned from a very young age to be cruel, and he spent most of his life assimilating that. He’s had leagues more practice, and on top of it all, might’ve even had a natural propensity for it. Lee will never know for sure what Kazuya had been like before Heihachi had destroyed him that first time, but no matter how “weak” he might’ve been in Heihachi’s eyes, his current behavior suggests at least something of a stronger soul. 

 

Jin is not Kazuya. Looking at him now, it’s uncanny as hell, but just because he’s his spitting image doesn’t actually make him like Kazuya. Maybe he still has a chance. Maybe the universe hasn’t given up on him yet. Maybe he can still learn from his mistakes and the things that have hurt him. Maybe he can start again.

 

Maybe he’s too far gone, though. Just like his father.

 

Lee watches him and wonders. He sits alone and broods, a hood shading his eyes, off to the side where the crowd has lessened. Kazuya’s match has just ended (with a near-fatality to seal the deal) and he won’t remove his eyes from the arena’s playback screen, seemingly studying the footage of his father as he utterly decimates his opponent. The intensity is palpable, and again, Lee is reminded of Kazuya. He truly is more like his mother in many ways, but the few things he shares with his father are inescapable.

 

Lee watches him and wants to reach out, but he knows better. Insanity is a hard thing to fix.

 


	9. Always

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This, too, is unchanging.

 

Kazuya kisses him, and he remembers.

 

It’s been a while since they were together last – a month and a half, to be exact – and he’s already being drawn back in like nothing has changed. Kazuya’s fingers are in his hair, stroking with that perfect blend of tenderness and possessiveness that his brother has long-since mastered, and the nip he gives Lee’s lower lip is more of a demand for entrance than a suggestion. They’re older than they used to be when this sort of thing would happen with much more frequency, but even as times change, this doesn’t. It feels the same as it always has.

 

Lee remembers with all the clarity in the world. Every kiss reminds him of the ones before, and it’s both a blessing and a curse. Their teenage years creep back up on him, early touches and soft points of contact that, despite being so forbidden at the time, seem so laughably chaste in hindsight. They had never been innocent, especially in each other’s arms, but they had tried (at some point) to take it easy. Go slowly. They didn’t know when they would be caught, and they certainly didn’t think that it would last very long, whatever it was. It was just a temporary fix. It was just for their moments of weakness. It was just until they could do it on their own.

 

He idly wonders what his teenaged self would think if he knew that those “temporary” things would still be happening thirty years later.

 

They part slightly, still closer than they need to be, both more and less wary in equal measures. The world has changed even as it has changed them, and even though they’ve both (mostly) accepted this for what it is – which is decidedly _not_ temporary – the familiar need to remain vigilant persists. For better or worse, they’ve been well-trained.

 

Still. It _has_ been a month and a half, after all.

 

“You cancelled your plans just to come by?” Lee inquires softly, running a thumb along Kazuya’s cheekbone. “I must say that I’m flattered, Kazuya.”

 

“Save it.” Kazuya’s voice is rough, but he briefly closes his eyes at the gentle contact. “Work sucks.”

 

The “I would rather be here” always remains unsaid, but it brings a smile to Lee’s face anyway.

 


	10. Silver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s the first thing he really finds himself distracted by.

 

He’s probably too young to be quite so serious about everything, but anything that serves him well inevitably becomes a part of his daily life. Cruelty, cunning, focus – if it works (and it does), then it works. It’s that simple.

 

This is what makes him so much stronger than anyone else his age. Physically, mentally, emotionally, there is no end to his superiority. It’s not that he’s arrogant – sure, he has his pride, but being too overconfident is a fatal flaw if there ever was one – it’s just a statement of fact. He has endured more, experienced the worst, and has triumphed over it all. He will continue to do so, both because he can and because he must. He must be serious. He must be strong. He must not allow himself to be diverted.

 

But then, there is Lee.

 

It has been years since he first came here, years since he made his capabilities known, years since he first disrupted Kazuya’s life. They’ve grown accustomed to each other by now, thirteen and twelve, enemies and allies and everything in between. There’s something reassuring about having Lee around (in spite of everything that isn’t so reassuring about him). After everything else in their lives, the other is nothing they can’t handle.

 

Except now, there’s... _this_. This...this _thing_. This fluttery, odd _thing_ that appears in his chest when he looks at him, when he gets too close, when the sun catches his silver hair and makes it glow. Something about him has been so terribly, awfully, delightfully distracting about him lately, and Kazuya can’t quite put his finger on it. Nothing is different – he’s always been so bright, so incandescent and gilded, so strangely pure in spite of Kazuya knowing that he most definitely is not. Lee is vibrant. Lee glows more than Kazuya, certainly. Lee is...well.

 

He’s pretty.

 

Kazuya realizes it with a nasty shock at some ungodly hour of the morning, the light of Lee’s silver hair and mercurial eyes shifting just at the fringes of his traitorous consciousness. He’s _pretty_. Nothing more, nothing less (not yet, anyway) but he’s fucking _pretty_. The darkness he holds in his heart does not manifest on his outward appearance like it does with Kazuya, so he’s luminous in comparison, alight and pretty and _distracting as hell_.

 

He tries to rationalize it. It must be the hair. The damn hair – it’s silver, for crying out loud, and he’s never seen anything like it. Sure, he’s had years to get used to it, but that has to be what the problem is. Anything else would just be too incriminating. Kazuya has been battling his childish, all-too human desires to be closer for years now, so this must be the manifestation of that. Of being lonely. Of not having anyone be kind to him.

 

Of not having anyone – except for Lee – offer him any sort of support. That must be it. None of this is quite what it seems, after all, and it’s unreasonable to think that anything is actually happening. Right? Sure, they’ve had their moments – when he’s at his weakest, sometimes Lee is the only one who has given him the strength to get back up again – but it can’t possibly mean _that_ much. Kazuya has never let anything distract him from his goals, let alone something so transient and unimportant. He knows what he’s doing by now.

 

Doesn’t he?

 

Burying the odd little...fuzzies (there’s no other word for it) should be easy, but it isn’t. Lee is always around, even when Kazuya doesn’t want him to be, annoying and persistent and stunningly, divertingly, _silver_. His obnoxious penchant for invading Kazuya’s personal space isn’t helping in the slightest, either, for more reasons than just one (read: Lee does it just to irritate him, but Kazuya can’t help but appreciate the closeness anyway, and nothing makes him angrier than that). His brother is just going to keep on being insufferable, no matter how distracting he becomes, and Kazuya is (evidently) just going to have to figure out how to live with that.

 

It’ll probably go away eventually, anyway.

 


	11. Childhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is, at best, a foreign concept.

 

Neither of them know what it was like to be a child.

 

Not in the traditional sense, at least, and certainly not in any of the ways that are positive. They learned quickly that children are weak and easily overpowered, with small hands and small voices that can be outmatched and outspoken with little effort. To be one was simply disadvantageous, at times disastrous, and nothing could drive this message home more clearly than their own experiences.

 

So they learned what they were taught and never forgot it.

 

Kazuya was taught that love is a transient thing, taken away as easily as it is given. Nothing ever lasts, not the adoration of a father nor the stability of a family, so nothing outside of yourself is worth holding onto. No one stays, and the world doesn’t care about how you feel. Let no one know what you’re thinking. Weakness will be punished. Strength is the end-all, be-all. Be cold, cruel, ruthless. Smarter, faster, better. Unbreakable. Enraged. Unstoppable.

 

(A child nonetheless.)

 

Lee was taught similar things, albeit in a somewhat different way. Life is a game to be played, after all, and no amount of power will prevent things that are beyond your control. His crash course in the darker side of reality was perhaps somewhat rougher than Kazuya’s – being a child on the streets will put you in some awful situations – but the whole concept of “growing up too fast” was something they were undeniably united in.

 

(Still, though. At the end of the day, a child without a childhood is still a child.)

 

How strange it had been to be so young and yet know that much so soon. They were too self-aware, too intelligent, too frightened and wary and angry to just be _children_. Tiny warriors living in an enemy fortress, generals-in-training who had already been to war, assassins who had already seen their worlds burn to the ground. They weren’t any of those things in the strictest sense, but there were only so many other roles that they could fulfill before their life lessons caught up to them.

 

In the end, they were the ones who had seen to the end of their own childhoods more than anyone or anything else. They hadn't really had much of a choice. 

 


	12. Last Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wouldn’t be so damn important if he wasn’t so alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one features light Kazuya/Jun, so just a small heads-up in case you're not feeling it. Take care!
> 
> It was always interesting to me how, in the Tekken 2 console opening sequence, when Jun turns to look somewhere over her shoulder, it honestly seems like she's looking right at you as the player.

 

Lee is angry with him again.

 

It’s strange that he can sense it without knowing it, but of course there’s a reasonable explanation for the hard, molten knot of distress he’d felt sitting in his gut last night. His internal sensory systems have been all over the place since the second tournament started, between Heihachi and Lee and the voice in his head and that strange woman –

 

Kazuya shakes his head, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. He doesn’t hide from things often, but here he is, an office space escapist. More and more frequently he’s been finding himself suffocated by the constraining walls of the Zaibatsu, and even the solitude of his private chambers hasn’t been enough to settle the captive rage bubbling in his blood. Outdoors is best. This silly little bench somewhere in the garden grounds will have to do. At least here, he can see the sky, even if it doesn’t prevent him from still tasting Lee’s omnipresent fury.

 

Because Lee doesn’t even have to be anywhere nearby for Kazuya to be aware of it. He can feel it in the evening air, can sense it crackling between the molecules of oxygen he breathes like electricity. It’s violent, it’s potent, and it’s unmistakably present in every passing second. The feeling is familiar, and not entirely unwelcome, in some bizarre, twisted way – he’s been feeding off of anger lately, off of the tensions and frustrations running high in everyone who gets too close to him – but that doesn’t mean that he likes it. Because it’s not just anyone.

 

It’s Lee.

 

He’d realized long ago that Lee held a significant degree of importance in his life, and that keeping him around was worth the trouble it would most certainly cause him. He’d had plenty of reasons at the time, plenty of excuses to make it seem less meaningful than it was – to keep an eye on him, to make sure he wasn’t plotting out his ambitions behind his back, to remind him who was really the stronger one around here – and while all of those additional things were also very true, they couldn’t entirely disguise the simple fact that Kazuya wanted and needed him.

 

Not that Kazuya needed reminding, but based on Lee’s increasingly negative behavior over the past two years, he’d evidently had a funny way of showing it.

 

Between that and everything else that has gone completely, utterly wrong recently, now they are here. Lee is angry with him, and Kazuya cannot fix it. They haven’t spoken in two whole days, and although the number isn’t exactly impressive compared to some of their previous petty streaks, the Second King of the Iron Fist Tournament is also currently underway. Lee has been more or less instrumental in coordinating the event and keeping many of the visiting threats at arm’s length, so to have been treated to his cold, furious silence for this long with hovering over their heads is rather disconcerting indeed.

 

Not that Kazuya _cares_. He has more important things to worry about, like running this fucking tournament, for starters. His father is here, of all people, and that’s just unacceptable. He has power to gain and a point to prove – he can deal with Lee later.

 

It doesn’t matter if he’s alone, now.

 

_Doesn’t it, though?_

 

Kazuya stiffens. This again. Words that aren’t words, but feelings taking shape. A voice that isn’t his own or anything familiar at all. A presence that insists on approaching his own, regardless of the obvious threat.

 

_Jun Kazama._

 

A tourney participant from an unknown family, her motivation is fairly easy to discern on paper. As far as his subordinates are concerned, she’s just another out-of-depth officer who’s coming after Kazuya. Her fighting style is unfamiliar, but nothing that any of them can’t handle. She is soft and pleasant and perhaps the least threatening-looking person in the entire lineup.

 

And she won’t leave him alone.

 

Since the tournament started, she has been nothing but trouble. It started when Lee had pointed out her uncanny ability to know exactly where all of the cameras were, and everything had really just spiraled out from there. The investigations they’d done hadn’t really turned up anything of relevance, and by the time Kazuya started seeing her face-to-face, he’d just about given up on understanding.

 

Because there was just something about her. Mysterious. Fearless. Intriguing. It was almost alarming how he couldn’t help but be interested, how he couldn’t help but want to be a little closer every time. Every instinct in his paranoid body screams at him to move, but all he does is look at her.

 

His mind is quieter when she’s around.

 

When Lee is around – and gods, it’s almost cruel to think of Lee at a time like this – his mind is on fire, roaring with rage and lust and longing, bellowing love and hate in equal measure. The voice in his head screams for his attention, and Kazuya can’t decide if he wants Lee’s blood or his words, his fear or his respect, his distance or his closeness.

 

His hatred or his love.

 

But this woman...this _woman_ , she comes to him, quiet and unassuming like she is now, and the inferno dims. His mind, for all of its permanent inconsistencies, becomes his own once again. It’s all too easy to look at her now, white clothes and dark eyes and small hands, and realize.

 

He has nothing, and she is something, so he wants it. He wouldn’t have ever wanted it before – hell, he hardly even _wants_ it now – but he doesn’t know if he actually has a choice between what she has to offer (whatever it is) and the darkness he’s falling into. He is desperate and alone, and yes, she’s a stranger, but...

 

He’s drowning in a world that he doesn’t recognize anymore, and of all things, of all methods, of all _people_ , she is the only hand that he trusts himself to take.

 

Lee is angry with him again, but right now, Kazuya can’t even feel it.

 


	13. Tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One more day, he tells himself. One more day.

 

Kazuya wakes up to sticky sleeping pants and knows that this is going to be another one of those absolute _hell_ days. He shifts, then regrets it immediately – _disgusting_. Truly, there are few things in life more unseemly than this, and Kazuya throws an arm over his eyes as though blocking out the light of morning will hide everything else.

 

Unfortunately, the proof of his bodily transgressions is not quite sight-based, and he can still feel the uncomfortable mess in his pants. _Gods_.

 

This has been happening a lot lately, much to his infinite chagrin. His body has always run on some form of overdrive, and while it has saved his life in the past, it only seems to be causing him trouble nowadays. What previously translated into supernaturally high levels of physical strength and stamina for someone of his age has now funneled into hormone hyperdrive, sending all of his internal systems positively reeling. This in of itself is supposedly a normal thing for a teenager, if his biology lessons are anything to go by, but the hormones and bodily dysfunctions are not the problems in themselves.

 

The problem is the other teenager in the house.

 

They’re both sixteen, at one of those rare points in the year where Lee’s birthday has recently occurred and they’re the same age for the briefest of times. Not that it matters, or has ever mattered – Kazuya isn’t the type of person to tease someone about being younger, and he’s hardly ever considered himself as being “the older brother”, if he’s being completely honest with himself. Age won’t stop them from getting beaten, so Kazuya doesn’t give a shit, and neither does Lee.

 

That being said, there is a sort of difference now that they’re getting older. It’s not so much the fact that they’re the same age now, but rather the fact that Lee is sixteen. A teenager. A very pretty one at that.

 

Kazuya groans and drags his hands down his face, frustrated beyond imagining. He can be furious with the world for putting him in this situation all he wants, and he can hate his brother for looking that good all the time and riling up his stupid hormones, but Kazuya knows who’s really to blame here. Yes, Kazuya knows perfectly well who the real problem is, and he’s lying in bed with a sticky mess in his pants and a humiliating dream (nightmare? Definitely a nightmare) lingering somewhere in the back of his head.

 

“I’m going to kill him.” He mutters aloud. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

 

The events that had transpired yesterday had not tipped things in his favor, and, admittedly, Lee had more or less made certain of that. They’d had an easy time that morning, and with father gone for the week, no one had been present to supervise their daily training sessions.

 

Kazuya had never wanted the old bastard to be around as much as he had yesterday.

 

Heihachi, in spite of all of his glaring, existential flaws, is a fantastic libido crusher. Many a restless night have been curbed by Kazuya’s intense memories of the man, and while such a strategy may do more harm than good, there are no risks that Kazuya won’t take to avoid having wet dreams about his brother. As of late, Heihachi’s presence during training has really helped Kazuya think with the right head.

 

But yesterday, he had not been there, and Lee had made a point of enjoying the room for creative freedom. Kazuya had more or less been displeased beyond measure.

 

Because really, how is anyone supposed to keep their composure in the face of something like that? He’s always known full-well that Lee does these things just to have fun, but his mounting paranoia over his own, developing weakness has made him wonder if, perhaps, his brother is fucking onto him. What could possibly be worse than that?

 

Kazuya growls, flinging his arms out to the side and staring at the ceiling hard enough to burn a hole in it. Stupid Lee and his stupid, pretty face and his stupid, perfect body and hair and everything. His brother is as beautiful as they come, and Kazuya is terrified to see what he’ll become a few years down the road. Will he still be able to resist him then? Will he still be able to pass off his reactions to Lee’s constant teasing as nothing more than hormonal overloads? Will he still be able to hold onto this tenuous relationship they’ve built without destroying it?

 

Tomorrow looms on the horizon, so many of them in the years to come. He couldn’t fix this yesterday, so can he fix it today? Can he fix it tomorrow? Can he make it through any more time of wanting what he knows he cannot have? He won’t feel like this forever. It’ll have to pass. Sure, it’s a sense of distraction that only been growing and mutating since they were much younger, but still. These kinds of things don’t last forever, and he’ll fix it. Soon. Somehow.

 

How many tomorrows will pass before he admits that it’s too late?

 


	14. Daylight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is always something else to be revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three cheers for moving/university, yeah? This is a quick update just to fill the radio silence - I get antsy if I go without writing for too long. 
> 
> Take care!

 

They are children. They hardly know each other. They met, for the first time, a mere three weeks ago.

 

And despite that, they already know too much. It’s a kind of knowledge they gain without trying, without wanting to, just an idle glance that happens to catch the other at the wrong time. They are small and scared, whether they want to be or not, and they can’t hide everything.

 

Lee watches Kazuya train, studies the roadmaps of scars on his skin with some kind of horrified fascination. The one across his chest is huge and deep, a nightmarish amalgamation of severe injury and improper healing. It takes the spotlight, being cruel and angry and hard to ignore, and is only accentuated by the patchwork mess of other wounds that linger on his adoptive brother’s body. Lee wonders what he’s been through. He wonders if he’s about to find out.

 

Kazuya sees Lee’s scars, too, although it takes more time for them to be revealed. Lee is still tiny and thin, tense and anxious about being left alone in a room with anyone. He’s stubborn and precocious, but Kazuya knows better than anyone else what he must be feeling like in this situation. Understanding that won’t make him any nicer towards the unwanted newcomer, but ignoring him is still better than bullying him. Besides, they have some of the same scars.

 

(They have some very different ones, too, but Kazuya doesn’t know where some of those came from, and he doesn’t want to, either.)

 

Heihachi disregards both of them in different ways, not really caring about how much damage he does or doesn’t deal when enacting his disciplinary tactics. Lee quickly becomes terrified of him, his previous sentiments of distrust and second-thoughts morphing into a full-blown tangle of regret and confusion. He has no idea if he made the right choice, trading uncertainty and survival for an angry man and his angry son. Kazuya can see the self-doubt eating away at him even as he doesn’t give up, doesn’t stop pushing, doesn’t let himself be kept underfoot by his own weaknesses. It’s a gamble, but he fully intends on using it to his advantage in any way that he can, and he’s already succeeding.

 

This is when Kazuya learns that Lee is dangerous.

 

Lee suffers under Heihachi’s wrath, but at least he gets the chance to be exempt from the terrible man’s ire. He sees the way that Heihachi treats Kazuya and is not envious in the slightest. Having this man’s attention is nothing close to a blessing, and if Kazuya’s frequently bruised body is any indication, it’s a pretty painful curse to bear. Still, his brother doesn’t seem to care all that much, getting back to his feet with otherworldly willpower and never backing down. Even with as many times as he’s seen Heihachi take Kazuya down, Lee still has never seen his brother cry.

 

This is when Lee learns that Kazuya is inhuman.

 

They study each other from afar, not wanting to get any closer even as they have no choice in the matter. This is where they are now, and if they are to stand a chance, they must do it together. From what they’ve seen (even when they don’t want to see it) the only thing they have is each other. There is too much pain in doing it on your own.

 

They would know, after all. They bear the proof of that on their skin.

 


	15. Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's supposed to be better than this.

 

He is not a sentimental man, and he never really has been. Any ounce of such a trait that he might’ve possessed as a child is long gone by now, and all the better for it. Sentimentality is dangerous. Distracting. Hardly the sort of thing that one should be spending their time and worries on. He’d lost everything once before, and the ache of it had made it hard to breathe sometimes. That wasn’t the kind of life he wanted to put up with for the rest of his days, so as soon as he was able, he made certain to expunge it from his emotional repertoire.

 

He’d been fifteen at the time. He’d also been too late, even if he hadn’t known that yet.

 

Lee Chaolan knows better than to mess with things that he can’t control. It’s one of those matters that he has learned from more than just experience, although that has a pretty hefty say in how he handles his affairs as well. Fighting battles that are too far below favorable odds is a no. Taking stances on shaky ground is a huge no. Any place where a risk is present must be carefully examined, every option weighed and debated, every moment painstakingly counted and acknowledged. If a situation is bound to slip too far out of his control, the danger is not worth the potential return. Business isn’t usually like that – not anymore, at least – but matters of a more emotional nature have always been far too unpredictable. Sentiment, in all its forms, more or less tops that list. It’s a dangerous affair to meddle in.

 

At this point, he’s lived long enough to regret acting so impulsively.

 

That’s what got him here, after all. Hiding from the life he left behind, running from a miserable failure. He’d shown too much of himself and has spent the last several years paying the price for it.

 

Kazuya had always destabilized him.That was a simple fact, and he’d known that from the moment he’d met him. He was dangerous to be around for almost all the reasons under the sun, but the one thing that Lee could never quite adjust to was the way that Kazuya completely threw him off his game. Subtle as it might’ve been at times, Lee knew perfectly well just how much he could definitively not afford that.

 

Somewhere along the way, though, he must’ve gotten careless. A little too bold, a little too confident about avoiding the inevitable and ever-looming consequences. That’s the only explanation – he never would’ve let Kazuya in otherwise.

 

Right?

 

He’d let it get to his head. He’d forgotten just how terrible everything could be, had disregarded all his previous warnings and concerns and deep-seated fears. He could share this with Kazuya, and everything would be fine. It wouldn’t be easy, but nothing worth it ever was. He knew what he wanted, and somehow, Kazuya wanted it, too. He hadn’t given it nearly as much thought as he should’ve.

 

And for a while, he was right. Everything was fine. Not much changed, but it didn’t have to. It was difficult at times, but he’d expected as much. Kazuya was damn near impossible to work with in any regard, and sharing a bed did little to remedy that fact. Lee had never believed himself to be capable of “fixing” Kazuya – no one could. Sure, he was pretty messed up, but he worked just fine the way he was. They both did. It was with a certain degree of self-assuredness that Lee regarded himself as the only living person that Kazuya thought of in a more positive manner.

 

As it was, no one knew them better than the other did. They’d seen each other through some of the worst times of their lives, had struggled side-by-side and made sure that they were, at the very least, on solid footing. Every little wrinkle in between didn’t matter in the end. Even when Kazuya was going off the deep end and couldn’t seem to stop himself from becoming another monster in the world’s great collection, Lee still found pieces of the man he’d once known.

 

Sentiment had driven him to it.

 

In spite of his best efforts, sentiment had remained. In the midst of frustration and ambition and death-defying stubbornness, that which he had tried so hard to eliminate would not disappear. In the face of losing something familiar, he was forced to realize just how much that something meant to him. In the end, it was sentiment that had brought him to such a reckless and stupid decision.

 

Once more, such a simple affair had nearly cost him everything. Lee is not the kind of person to make the same mistake twice.

 

That being said, it might not even matter.

 


	16. Drowning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How dark must it be down there to not see the stars?

 

Jin Kazama is an object of fascination, and Lee spends more time than he should examining his affairs. The kid is a disaster of epic proportions, a massive threat to the Mishima causes, and frankly, provides a certain quality of entertainment that is hard to come by these days. Following his takeover of the Zaibatsu, Jin has made quite the global statement, and Lee can already tell that this isn’t going to pan out very well. He’s seen this sort of nonsense unfold before, after all, and while Jin is infinitely less business-savvy than Kazuya, his propensity for causing damage is no less impressive. If he keeps slipping, it’s going to get ugly.

 

Somehow, Jin has even fewer people on his side than Kazuya did.

 

Lee knows full-well that he could’ve done better with that. When Kazuya was falling to pieces and losing his mind, Lee simply had not done enough. Granted, he’d had absolutely no idea what to do, and as it turns out, there probably wasn’t much he could’ve done with his definitively not special inability to sense spiritual activity and the like, but the fact still stands that he could’ve done better. Part of achieving closure had been admitting that.

 

Another part deals in forgiveness. He hasn’t quite gotten there yet, but no one needs to know that.

 

If anyone could’ve made a point of reaching out to Kazuya, though, it should’ve been him. He’d been the closest to him by a wide margin, the only person who really got to spend any time alone with him outside of the office. He’d shared his bed, and in the end, they’d shared a lot more than that. It should’ve been him.

 

That being said, it’s hardly worth regretting now. If anything, it’s far more interesting to observe these things as they happen. History has a tendency to repeat itself, after all, and yet the players are different every time. One of these kids ought to have the power to break this unholy cycle, right?

 

Well, maybe they would if Jin Kazama would just look at them for more than ten seconds at a time. Honestly, he’s either willfully ignoring the fact that there are still people who are really in his corner or he’s just that stupid. Lee can’t tell which one it is. As laughably straightforward as Jin is, there are still some things that he just can’t figure out.

 

Those other kids, though. Hwoarang and Xiaoyu. Their behavior is pretty self-explanatory, and Lee has to wonder if they’re just going to keep on getting lighter as the world around them darkens into war.

 

Ling Xiaoyu had been easy to read up on, a socially active young girl with a legitimate public record and vague ties to the Mishima family. Her influence is heavily limited by her other obligations (such as high school, of all things) and her distinct lack of experience on a high-stakes battlefield, but Lee has to admire her sunny determination in the face of Jin’s behavior. She’d known him before everything had gone to hell, after all, and that can’t be an easy thing for her to reconcile. Her devotion, despite its seeming futility, is heartwarming.

 

Hwoarang, on the other hand, had been much harder to pin down, at least in the physical sense. Aside from a smattering of criminal accounts, an apartment block, and a suspicious motorcycle license, Lee hadn’t managed to find all that much at first. The kid had practically disappeared after the fourth tournament, and it wasn’t until Lee found out about the Korean military bit that any of the radio silence started to make sense.

 

In contrast, his motivations are clear as day, even the ones that Hwoarang himself probably doesn’t know about quite yet. He and Xiaoyu have very similar intentions regarding Jin, Hwoarang just has his own way of expressing and acting on his (fairly obvious) concerns. They seek him out and they try so hard to reach him, to get him to talk, to help him in whatever way they can manage. They only understand in parts and pieces, and neither of them have the whole story – that much became clear when Jin nearly killed Hwoarang at the fifth tournament. Even now, though, he persists. He doesn’t seem to hate Jin for what he’s done. Lee, in a way, can’t fathom it.

 

It had been so easy to hate Kazuya back then, even as he’d cared for him. How can Jin continuously wrong these potential friends of his and still have their devotion, their best efforts, their dutiful concern? How can Jin keep ignoring them and all of the chances they represent? How can they stand to keep trying, to keep running and following and hoping with mixed degrees stubbornness and tortured faith? It’s beyond him. These children are what it means to be human – to love, to believe, to be blind and foolish and compelling all the same. He and Kazuya are not like that anymore. In all fairness, Lee isn’t sure what they are, only that it probably doesn’t matter and that he would rather not live to see anyone else become the same.

 

Maybe he’ll make the effort this time, and maybe it’ll matter. Maybe it won’t. It’s a risk, but perhaps it is risk worth taking; after losing Kazuya, Lee doesn’t want Jin Kazama to drown, too.

 


	17. Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things are just impossible.

 

He doesn’t know why he’s awake, but he’s sure that he’s about to find out.

 

Kazuya knows this feeling. He has always been highly attuned to his surroundings, both on an instinctual and a sensory level, able to discern even the most infinitesimal of environmental nuances. This usually works to his advantage, considering how one needs to be on high alert 24/7 when Heihachi Mishima is around, but it can get to be a considerable hassle when he’s trying to sleep. To make matters more irritating, Heihachi isn’t even here right now. He’s gone for the week and Kazuya still can’t sleep. Maybe he shouldn’t have let Lee stay in his room with him for the night.

 

That’s hardly fair, though. Kazuya’s advanced levels of awareness don’t necessarily apply to mundane things like the behaviors and erratic movements of bedmates. They’ve done this sort of thing enough times for him to know that what Lee does at night is entirely irrelevant, so long as it isn’t suspicious.

 

All of this still doesn’t change the fact that he is now awake and still doesn’t know why, though.

 

Kazuya sighs. It’s still very dark outside, and a cursory glance at his clock reveals that he’s only been asleep for an hour or two. Figures. Even with father gone, his body won’t let him relax for even a second. He used to think that he would outgrow this nonsense eventually, but here he is, nearly twenty-one and still putting up with the same nonsense as he’s always been. Some things just don’t change, no matter how much time passes. Desires, fears, nightmares –

 

Nightmares.

 

Kazuya sits up, trying to discern Lee’s features in the darkness. His brother is sleeping with his back to him, but he doesn’t stir when Kazuya touches his shoulder, which is unusual. Lee is as twitchy as they come, sometimes, and even though sharing a bed actually helps him sleep better, he’s still extremely attuned to what’s going on around him. Kazuya has to admire his good instincts, at least a little bit.

 

However, this ability is not absolute. Lee is still undeniably human, and his body will do what it must to keep him alive if he hasn’t gotten enough sleep in recent days. The next step beyond this is that, once he is asleep, there’s no telling what his own mind might subject him to.

 

The first time Kazuya had witnessed one of Lee’s nightmares, they’d been children still. Unable to sleep, he’d been wandering the halls near his room, hoping that the monotony of pacing would lull him into at least a state that resembled relaxation, but instead, he’d overheard the sound of screaming.

 

He’d never heard Lee scream before that time, and even in sleep, it was an awful sound. Perhaps being asleep had made it worse; instead of being unrestrained, it was choked and frantic, interspersed with ragged breaths and the unmistakable sounds of crying. It spoke of a terror so deeply personal and inescapable that Kazuya, despite the back-and-forth nature of their relationship, had intervened.

 

That was several years ago, and Kazuya has only been privy to a handful more since then. Despite this, he knows that they happen much more often than that, knows that the haunted shade in his adopted brother’s eyes comes from more than just the waking torments of his good memory. They tend to come in waves, and he _has_ been looking a little tired lately. If Kazuya had cared enough to put the signs together, he might’ve seen this coming.

 

An irregular breath, then a strange, tiny sound. Kazuya’s gaze zeroes in on his brother, studying him intently. If it’s starting now, he needs to be ready, but if it’s just a fluke, he would really rather not have to deal with Lee’s inevitable ire at being awoken for no good reason.

 

As Kazuya watches him, Lee stirs, his whole body tensing up as though reacting to an unseen pain. His breath hitches, and then Kazuya hears the sound again. A whimper. Lee inhales sharply, but the cry that follows is disproportionate to the force of intake, small and scared and hopeless beyond imagining. It’s a familiar one, and has inexplicably remained as one of Kazuya’s least favorite sounds for reasons he still doesn’t quite understand.

 

“Hey.” Kazuya grabs his brother’s shoulder, shaking him. “Get up.”

 

He would prefer it is things were this simple, but nothing ever is – Lee doesn’t wake up, doesn’t stop dreaming, doesn’t stop making those awful noises that speak of more pain than words ever could. He trembles beneath Kazuya’s touch, but doesn’t move much more than that. He can’t, thanks to the paralytic nature of REM sleep, and Kazuya is glad for that, seeing as he’s been kicked by Lee often enough even when he isn’t dreaming.

 

Kazuya tries again, calling his brother’s name this time. That usually works, even if it takes a bit, and his efforts are eventually rewarded when his brother jerks forward with one last gasping cry.

 

His chest heaves and he stares into the darkness with huge, depthless eyes, not a shred of his usual composure about him. His whole body is shaking, and when he registers Kazuya’s touch and presence beside him, he flinches violently.

 

“...Kazuya?”

 

Kazuya responds by reaching out and smoothing down Lee’s hair, which is messy from sleep and distress. His brother tries to catch his breath as Kazuya does this, the rhythm something that they’re both familiar with. No words are exchanged – they would be meaningless and probably just make things worse. Kazuya doesn’t know what Lee dreams about, and he doesn’t want to. His brother can never tell him, and that alone says more than anything else.

 

Lee makes a low sound, a distinctive precursor to the tears he has never been able to hold back. It’s the one weakness they’ll allow themselves, and Kazuya just holds him in his arms and lets him cry, knowing that they won’t talk about this in the morning.

 


	18. Standing Still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On paper, it's a prey instinct. He doesn't know how he feels about that.

 

This is where it starts.

 

He knows that he must _feel_ it before he actively notices it, because otherwise he wouldn’t find himself in a defensive position with no real memory of how he’d gotten there. It’s a survival mechanism, a remnant of his childhood and all of his higher intuitions; his body just responds on autopilot, reacting to an unknown and subtle stimulus without his mind even recognizing that anything has changed. It’s reflexive. It’s impulsive.

 

It’s instinctual.

 

Instinct, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Lee trusts his instincts (for the most part) with his life, and he’s escaped many dangerous situations because of it. The body activates its fight-or-flight response for a reason, and he knows better than to ignore it, provided that he even takes notice of any physiological changes in the first place. As it stands, he lives his entire life in a state of heightened spatial awareness and physiological activity – at this point, how could he survive otherwise? His line of work demands a lot out of him, and his continued existence depends on how seriously he takes that.

 

This, though. This is...different. This feels less like the kind of instinct that keeps you alive in a fight and more like the kind of instinct that makes you flinch when you hear a noise in the dark. This is a feeling underscored by fear, a rush of ice through dilated veins and the catching of one’s breath because it seems too loud, suddenly. This is an impulse of one who is hunted, of one who is hiding, of one who is sure that their traitorous heartbeat is the most deafening sound in the room.

 

This is prey instinct, and this is where it starts.

 

Lee is halfway out of his chair before his mind catches up to his body’s movements, but even then, it’s far too late. He’d been focusing too closely on his work. The hunter has already found him, and he’s blocking the only escape he might have.

 

Kazuya looks, for lack of a better word, possessed. He always looks like that when this sort of thing happens, and it’s been happening a bit too often as of late. There’s a strange light in his eyes, a bizarre sort of distance in his expression, an unsettling edge to the way that he conducts himself. His movements are even more threatening than usual, equal parts measured and erratic. Even before he’d defeated Heihachi and taken over the Zaibatsu, Kazuya has always been a few steps beyond the mortal constraints of humanity, but this...this always speaks of that certain _something_ lurking just beneath the surface.

 

It’s times like these where Lee doesn’t even know who Kazuya is, and for a brief moment, he makes the mistake of looking this stranger who resembles his brother in the eyes. He rescinds the choice immediately, but it’s too late – the damage has been done.

 

This is where the fear comes in.

 

Kazuya takes one step forward, and Lee takes two steps back. It’s a pattern, like everything else, an instinctual habit ingrained deep into his bones. _Get out. Get away. Get out!_ It shouldn’t be like this. Kazuya has not hurt him yet – not like this. _He could_. But he hasn’t. _He will_. But not yet. He wants something, but he never says what. He just finds him, seeks him out, and pins him somewhere. Usually, all Kazuya wants is something simple, something typical – a fight, an exchange, an intimate moment for the two of them to share – but Lee is still waiting for the day when Kazuya kills him.

 

Kazuya continues to advance, and Lee persists in retreating, drawing away even though he knows he shouldn’t. It’s better to face Kazuya head-on, and normally, he wouldn’t hesitate in doing so, but this is the farthest thing from normal. He can’t bring himself to stand firm. He can’t even manage to look him in the eyes. Intent is clear in every step his brother takes, in the way that he very deliberately continues to back Lee into a – literal and metaphorical – corner, and it’s too much to take.

 

His back hits the wall before he’s ready for it to, and then Kazuya is right in front of him. The temperature drops. His chances are completely wrecked now. Lee tips his head down, feeling as though his brother is looming over him despite the rather unimpressive height difference.

 

“Kazuya.” He says quietly, avoiding Kazuya’s intense gaze. “Do you need something?”

 

His brother, if anything, moves in even closer. For his part, Lee is never sure if he should start panicking at this point. On one hand, he absolutely hates this. He never knows what he wants. Kazuya’s steady, unfathomable approach is terrifying, and it sets off every physiological alarm system that he possesses. His brother is dangerous before he is anything else, and Lee knows what happens when you let yourself become trapped by something dangerous. He’s had enough past experiences with the matter to avoid it when he can.

 

Kazuya, however, is pretty much unavoidable. These bizarre confrontations are inevitable by this point, and Kazuya will have no trouble tracking him down if he tries to avoid him. When he wants something, he intends on getting it – Lee just wishes he could know what it is that he wants _before_ this sort of thing happens. Kazuya has always been the one person to disarm him completely, and he’s to the point (as he always, eventually is) where he can’t even think of how he should handle this.

 

So he shuts down instead.

 

The panic doesn’t overtake him this way. It just sits beneath his skin as Kazuya corners him, as his presence invades his personal space and demands to be acknowledged, as his burning gaze seeks to meet Lee’s own. Lee feels calloused fingers tuck under his chin, tilting his face up; Kazuya leans in, lips brushing lightly against his hair.

 

“You’re afraid.”

 

Lee doesn’t move, although the words do spark a flash of distress in his gut. Honestly, how dare he. He should know better than to be so cruel.

 

“Perhaps.” He manages, his voice barely audible. “It’s only natural.”

 

Kazuya draws back slightly, and Lee chances a quick look at his face. His expression is still unreadable, but some of the strangeness in his eyes has faded away. That alone is more relieving than it should be.

 

“You know,” Lee sighs, hands coming up against Kazuya’s chest as he tries to shove down the residual threads of terror, “There are better ways of getting my attention.”

 

If Kazuya notices that his voice is shaking, he doesn’t bother addressing it.

 


	19. Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Twenty years later and he still looks at him the same way.

 

Kazuya looks up, and there he is.

 

Through the years, Lee has been many things to him – an enemy, a brother, a subordinate, a lover – but no matter what you called it, the man himself never really changed. Lee himself remained the same, proud and capable and infuriatingly self-assured. Even now, Kazuya doesn’t quite know _what_ Lee is to him anymore, but he still knows _him_.

 

He still knows that expression, that stance, those familiar, intelligent eyes that always look at him in the same way.

 

Right now, he’s being subtle. They both are. This is not the time nor place for any sort of interaction between them – that will come later, when they’re alone and free of their current responsibilities. Gatherings such as this have always rubbed him the wrong way, and for all of Lee’s ability to thrive on human contact and public entertainment, even he has his limits. Kazuya watches him as he moves about the room, and _gods_ , the way he conducts himself hasn’t changed a bit. Sure, he’s older now and has learned from his experiences, but even the little things that Kazuya recognizes – hand gestures, side glances, the way he runs his fingers through his hair – are all the same. The notion, novel or no, always manages to instill the smallest sense of satisfaction in him.

 

He still remembers what it was like to be absolutely assured in the knowledge that he alone possessed the experience and intimacy required to fully understand his brother. What with all the time that has passed since then, he isn’t dense enough to claim that still – not yet, anyway. It’s only a matter of time and patience before things will return to the way they were.

 

Lee is aware of his attention. Kazuya knows that for a fact, can see it in the way that he carries himself just the slightest bit differently than usual. He’d always complained about the incomprehensible intensity of Kazuya’s gaze, insisting that it made him feel colder or something like that. _Heh_. Even now, Kazuya can hear him complaining about that, perfect eyebrows furrowed in consternation and arms crossed firmly over his chest. Kazuya had never bothered to explain his overly studious scrutiny, preferring to leave his reasons (as he often did) unsaid.

 

His brother, he notices, is stepping up his game. That emphatic head shake was definitely for show, and Kazuya’s eyes narrow. This, of course, is familiar as well.

 

Lee is, for lack of a stronger term, beautiful, almost to the point that it’s an objective fact rather than a widely-held opinion. He always has been, and Kazuya would know that better than anyone. He lived with him, he worked with him, he fought with him – hell, he even slept with him, and none of those events have done anything to alter the fact that Lee is just too gorgeous to be true. Such a train of thought is an uncharacteristic one, seeing as Kazuya’s care for beauty and constructs like it is severely limited, but with Lee, it persists nonetheless. Kazuya has more or less given up on trying to suffocate it by now.

 

Because really, if twenty years couldn’t extinguish this, what the hell can more time do? Half-insane, dead and resurrected, contained and restored and even sharing his existence with another being, Kazuya never could shake the persistent memory of his brother. Something of him just insisted on lingering, and now that Kazuya is really back in the realm of reality, there’s absolutely no escape.

 

Especially not when he’s looking at him.

 

Kazuya meets his gaze, noting the thoughts there even with the distance between them. He seems to have made up his mind about what he wants from this encounter, and conveniently, it’s very much in line with Kazuya’s own desires. He smirks. Lee catches the expression and shakes his head slightly, a silent chastisement despite the small smile of amusement on his face. Time, strangely, has softened some of the edges between them, and this is no exception – twenty years ago, Lee’s response to Kazuya’s confidence would’ve been a pretty even toss-up between matched arrogance and cool disapproval. Somewhere in those years between, a bit of that deep-seated aggression has left him.

 

That, or he’s just gotten a lot better at hiding it. Kazuya looks forward to finding out. For all the things that haven’t changed, some things most certainly have, and it is with some bizarre level of determination that he finds himself persisting in trying to find all the little differences.

 

Across the room, Lee looks back at him, almost as though he’s checking to make sure that he’s still there.

 


	20. Violet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He must be joking.

 

Kazuya’s sense of humor is more or less extremely lacking. What little he does possess is rather sideways, and hardly qualifies as anything that’s actually remotely funny. He doesn’t like, take, or get jokes – this includes badly-worded statements, attempts at being clever, and people in general. The things he laughs at are not funny. If he deigns to laugh, something bad has most certainly just happened.

 

(He wasn’t always like this, but even his previous matters of laughable derision have lost some of their potency. Very few things are worth his amusement these days.)

 

Still, Kazuya Mishima knows a joke when he sees one. Or at least, he hopes he does.

 

The first thing he really registers is color. Not just any color, though – purple. Lots and lots of purple, almost to a heinous degree. It’s a color that Kazuya prefers himself, honestly, but this whole debacle is well on its way to changing his mind. It’s too bright, too garish, too obnoxious and nauseatingly glittery. Kazuya has a very firm aversion to sequins or any unnecessary embellishments of that variety, and this is pretty much a manifestation of his worst fashion nightmares.

 

He hadn’t even been aware that he’d even _possessed_ a fashion nightmare scenario until this very moment, so he can just add _that_ fun fact to the list of reasons to be pissed off right now. He’d begun to wonder if anything could still surprise him just a little too soon, evidently. Once his vision has stopped rebelling against him, he can finally focus on what’s really important. Which is the idiot wearing all of that purple. Which is a contestant in the fourth tournament. Which is his brother.

 

What a concept.

 

Kazuya has always known that Lee subscribed just a little _too_ closely to elements of high fashion rather than everyday fashion, and the two things are not always equal. _Especially_ not by visual and aesthetic standards. This entire experience is pretty exemplary to that degree, and if his brother had elected to wear heels with this ridiculous ensemble, Kazuya wouldn’t be surprised to see this exact outfit on some foreign catwalk. Honestly. What the fuck is he wearing? He has to be joking.

 

He supposes there’s only one way to find out.

 


	21. Lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Certain things in life just go by more quickly than others.

 

Illumination comes in bursts, highlighting their skin in brief shutter flashes before returning the room to darkness. In the brushstrokes of the lightning, they are the same color, white and smooth and almost flawless against the rapidly alternating backdrop of this small universe they are entirely immersed in. Smaller flashes throw things into sharper relief, revealing things that even sunlight does not dare to treat so indelicately – shadowed curves, sharp edges, sprawling and heavily-rendered scars.

 

Bodies move in synchronicity, perfectly timed in a kind of natural rhythm unhindered by thought processes. There’s a pattern to what they do, unlike the arbitrary fickleness of the weather outside. The rain comes down in sheets, changing angles at the whim of the wind, and the thunder rumbles with no particular rhyme to its reason, so long as it follows the lightning’s lead in its cosmic dance. Indiscriminate, unplanned, unsystematic, the gale pushes on, seemingly debating whether or not it will be gone by morning.

 

Beneath the rain and thunder, Lee moans softly, mouth close to Kazuya’s ear. His arms are draped loosely over his brother’s shoulders, a reminder for him to stay close, not that Kazuya needs reminding at this point. Nothing can tear him away from this. For as often as they are together, they rarely get this chance, and even when they do, it seldom lasts. In uncharacteristic almost-sentiment, he wants to keep this while he still has the opportunity and wherewithal to do so.

 

His movements are slower than usual, paced between the uneven performance of thunder and lightning, and Lee responds to this in ways that send veritable aches of longing through Kazuya’s veins. His brother drags their mouths together, kissing him with soft passion, a sunshower and a rainstorm all at once. Kazuya kisses back harder, dark clouds and lightning, but Lee doesn’t seem to mind. A quicker strike in the midst of haphazard steadiness has him breaking away with a gasp, crying out softly into the darkness of Kazuya’s bedroom.

 

In flashes, he can see him. The lightning is near-blinding against his hair, illuminating the silver strands until they glow in a way that’s almost ethereal. Pale even in the daylight, his skin is white against darker sheets, smooth to the touch and almost delicate in places. The short visions compound the sensations – the way their bodies move together, Lee’s fingertips against his back, the fluttering of his eyelashes against Kazuya’s cheek when he kisses his brother’s hairline. Snapshots of rare moments, as fleeting and transitory as lightning.

 

“Kazuya,” Lee murmurs, lips brushing his ear. “Kazuya.”

 

Kazuya kisses him, one hand stroking possessively through his silky hair. Lee moans quietly into his mouth, whimpering slightly – he’s getting close, then. He pushes harder and Lee breaks away with a gasp, shuddering in Kazuya’s arms. The lightning illuminates his face in half-caught flashes, making it difficult to see, but Kazuya doesn’t need to. He knows it all by heart.

 

(Eyes closed, throat bared, open, vulnerable, the one thing they share that no one else will ever have – )

 

The understanding that passes between them and makes itself known deep inside is swift and transient, light and barely noticeable beneath the weight of everything else. Just as this individual, temporary experience will someday be lost to the memory-ravaging force of time, so will any errant feelings that make their way to the surface.

 

Still. For now, there is this, and beneath the cover of thunder, Kazuya can hear his name being called.

 


	22. Teamwork

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They probably could've ruled the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My initial goal, when starting this, was to be done with all fifty parts by the time I turned 21. I turn 21 in four days. I don't think I'm going to make it, ahahaha
> 
> Sorry that they've all been so short lately - hope you like it all the same! Take care!

 

In many ways, the world has not seen more of a wasted opportunity. Such determination is hard to come by, and such brilliance is an even rarer commodity. Even in the grand scheme of things, they are significant – they’ve made sure of that.

 

But despite all of their awe-inspiring, personal achievements, there is still something to be said about all the endless “what-ifs”.

 

Kazuya doesn’t think about those kinds of things, not really. For a brief time, he might’ve had to fight it, but it’s easy now. What-ifs are pointless. They won’t change how things are now, and there’s no reason to think of things that have no bearing on reality. What-ifs are weaknesses. What-ifs are the things that get you killed.

 

Lee is, both literally and emotionally, somewhat more human than Kazuya. He has those thoughts still, even if he doesn’t want them and doesn’t like them. He’s mulled over all of it enough to know what could’ve been and what he could’ve done better, and he doesn’t see any real need in constantly going back over the same things. He still does, of course, but it’s just one personal shortcoming of many that he’s learned to live with.

 

The fact of the matter is that they really could’ve done amazing things if they’d just been able to work together.

 

By current standards, the thought is so undeniably ludicrous that it’s almost laughable, but Lee can’t shake it. He remembers growing up with Kazuya, remembers all the times they’d almost agreed on things, remembers all the moments when, briefly, their mutual stubbornness had united them.

 

Resisting the crushing weight of Heihachi’s so-called parental tactics had been an entirely separate routine, something that they didn’t really acknowledge but absolutely needed nonetheless. That had been survival, pure and simple, survival and the fleeting admittances of their lingering humanity. When they’d stood together without a fuss it had been because they hadn’t had a choice. It had been because this was the one weakness they would allow themselves.

 

So when the time came for Kazuya to make good on his lifelong intentions and be the force in the world that Heihachi had never managed to become, he’d never even bothered to consider needing any sort of help with that. Subordinates and the like could work _for_ him, but he didn’t need anyone to work _with_ him.

 

Looking at what they’ve built now on their own, Lee has no doubt that they could’ve done anything they’d wanted to if they’d just done it together all those years ago. Kazuya, for all his aversion towards what-ifs, knows that, too.

 

But there are fewer things in life more bygone than that.

 


	23. Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'll never say a word, but he knows, anyway.

 

His brother, credit to Kazuya’s rather extensive archive of personal knowledge, is many things.

 

_Dangerous. Problematic. Irritating._

 

He plays many roles, wears many masks, picks and chooses his battles in life so effortlessly that you might even forget it was a fight. It might be difficult for most people to parse out so many identities, but not for Lee. 

 

_Secretary. Stockholder. CEO._

 

Professional or personal, public or private, he has it all under control and has it all carefully separated out into tidy little units of existence. Again, you'd think it would a complicated matter, but Lee has always been above average in that regard. Nothing is too difficult so long as he has been properly motivated.

 

_Brother. Son. Uncle._

 

Some things overlap, some do not, and some things simply remain unknown to everyone except the two of them.

 

_Confidant. Companion. Lover._

 

Kazuya knows all of this. Every persona, every stage name, every quirk and tic and most recent interest, Kazuya knows it all and makes a point of doing so. It’s something of a job as well as something of a deeply personal preference – his brother is a slippery one, certainly, and there are few things more dangerous than the things he’s capable of when left unsupervised. Kazuya had already watched Heihachi make the same mistakes in that regard throughout their childhood, so when it was Kazuya’s turn to stand above Lee, he made certain to exercise as much control as he could manage.

 

Lee, of course, had despised this with every fiber of his extremely stubborn being, but he’d learned. So had Kazuya, at the time, albeit something very different. He’d been in a pretty dark place by the end of those two years between the first and second King of the Iron Fist tournaments, but at the beginning, he’d been on top of the world and had the wherewithal to appreciate it.

 

He’d also had the awareness to appreciate his brother’s company, as competitive as it had been. At that time in their lives, Lee had been much angrier than he is now. Openly fierce, ragingly defiant, and dangerously cutthroat, the man he’d employed in the Zaibatsu was a very different person from the one who currently runs Violet Systems. Twenty years would do that to a person, Kazuya surmises, but it’s so much more than that. _Lee_ is so much more than that.

 

_Lethal. Merciless. Powerful._

 

He’s honed his edge, has hidden razor-sharp blades of cunning skill under sunglasses and expensive fur coats. The decadence he’d toyed with as a younger man has become his first defense, the awe-inspiring mating display of a peacock – if peacocks were capable of killing you singlehandedly, anyway. His charming smiles and easy laughter disguise the light-speed thoughts of a master strategist, and even while playing the fool, he is a force to be reckoned with. Violet is merely another stage name, the preferred cover-up of a most deadly assassin. There’s always something more.

 

_Damaged. Restless. Different._

 

Lee has been through a lot, and it shows. The games he plays are careful ones, waiting ones, vigilant ones that are constantly shifting with the tides of war. He knows patterns, watches for signs, and avoids dark corners and stronger enemies until he's certain that he has the steadier ground. He isn't looking to be caught off-guard. He isn't looking to repeat the mistakes of those who fell before him. He definitely isn't looking to be reminded of his childhood, and so he lies in endless wait, an eternal thorn in Kazuya's side.

 

_Beautiful. Valuable. Important._

 

He’ll never say it out loud, but he needs him, disguises and all. He always has.

 

He always will.

 


	24. Giving Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sooner he puts it all to rest, the better.

 

When he awakens, it is 3:37. He himself is fuzzy and disoriented, staring blankly at the dimmed computer screen in front of him as though it’ll offer some sort of explanation as to why he’s in this state. He isn’t usually this uncoordinated, even immediately after waking.

 

Then again, he hasn’t slept in two days. That just might have something to do with it.

 

Lee stretches, stifling a yawn as he tries to get his mental bearings. A cursory environment check confirms that he is, in fact, in his office, which is a little strange. He doesn’t usually fall asleep here. It’s hard enough falling asleep in a bed, let alone somewhere like this, no matter how comfortable his desk chair is. Odd. He really must be pushing his limits, after all. Still, if he’s awake now, he may as well make do with the time that he has and keep working. Not much gets done when one is sleeping.

 

As he shifts to wake his computer up, though, he becomes aware of a bizarre little flicker of warmth that seems to be residing within him. It’s an odd note of positivity, most likely left over from whatever he’d been dreaming about – hm. What had he been dreaming about?

 

Naturally, he regrets the thought almost as soon as it enters his mind. He doesn’t remember much – dreams tend to be like that, even immediately after waking – but he doesn’t have to. What comes to mind is more than enough.

 

_(A gentle hand against his face, teasing fingers in his hair, sunlight and simplicity and the low sound of Kazuya’s laughter lingering in the air. Soft sheets, soft words, soft kisses against the back of his neck and his own contentment, foreign and longed for, swelling momentously in his chest.)_

 

Lee forcefully shunts the line of thought aside, knowing full-well that it’s already too late. The dream, while far easier and much lighter than anything in their lives had ever been, is still familiar enough to let the memories of similar moments play unbidden through his mind. And isn’t this just how it always goes? He can work as hard as he likes, struggle as much as he wants, shut it all down as hard as he can...he can push it all away for years, but the moment something serves as a reminder, everything comes back to him like it had just happened yesterday. His brilliant memory, so long a prized asset, is nothing more than a curse when it comes to this.

 

_Kazuya..._

 

Of course he’ll always remember. Dream or no, he’ll never forget him, and he’ll certainly never forget all the strange fancies he used to have when he was younger. Nothing more than the naive dreams of a child, really, these fleeting hopes born from better moments, these secret snatches of normalcy that made him wonder if maybe, just maybe, they could be happy together. They could get a second chance. They could win, they could stay, and everything in the world would just be _right_ for once.

 

But that’s quite enough of that.

 


	25. Frozen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's an oddly...normal memory, to say the least.

 

It’s always a strange thing when Kazuya remembers something from his childhood.

 

Granted, it’s kind of a joke to refer to his early past as such, seeing as his “childhood” ended at right about five years of existence, but he also doesn’t have another word to call it. He’s never bothered to think about it. Lee probably has a word for it, something slightly off-kilter that verges just a shade too far into gallows humor-territory, but using words has never been Kazuya’s gimmick. Even his own ruminations are mostly silent nowadays, save the voices of other people.

 

Funnily enough, though, it’s Lee’s voice that he’s hearing right now, although he’s not espousing any sort of descriptor for what their ruined childhoods might’ve been. No, right now he sounds very different – soft, measured, almost sullen as he gazes up at the gray sky in Kazuya’s memory, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

 

_I don’t like it._

 

Kazuya had been a little startled to hear him speak, jerked out of his own thoughts as they stood ankle-deep in the snow. The garden had been almost unrecognizable after the night before, and all the plants were coated with a lacy layer of snow and ice. Without the sunlight, the display had not been as dazzling as it could’ve been, not that Kazuya had cared much. Snow was just that: snow. Not much of a nuisance, and certainly nothing to be excited over.

 

Lee, it seemed, disagreed.

 

 _Snow?_ Kazuya had asked, as though it hadn’t been obvious enough, as though speaking to Lee had been an acceptable thing to do. At the time, he’d been there for about a year, but they were still on poor terms. Unified, but only out of necessity, a trend that would mark the days they hadn’t yet seen.

 

Lee had nodded, silver bangs falling to obscure his eyes for just a moment. When he looked back up again, gazing skyward once more, Kazuya thought he saw a strange glimmer in his eyes.

 

_It’s too cold._

 

The words linger in his head now, Lee’s small voice gradually aging with subsequent, snowy memories. Eight, twelve, fifteen, eighteen, twenty and beyond – a lot has changed, but that had not been one of them. Lee had firmly maintained his aversion to the cold, and, Kazuya suspects, persists in that vehement preference even now. He remembers that he used to wonder after it, much in the same way that he had periodically mulled over Lee’s general dislike of sharing food, dirty floors, and oversized clothing.

 

Now, of course, it all makes a lot of sense. There’s not much that a child can do to fend off the cold, especially in the sort of environment that Lee would’ve been in prior to his impromptu adoption. Now that he’s thinking about it, it’s very easy for Kazuya to remember Lee’s palpable displeasure over colder weather, the way that he would shrink away from the very thought of going out in the snow. Over time, this obvious aversion had faded, but Kazuya could still trace it in the distaste he projected. At times, Kazuya had even taken advantage of this obvious weakness, sending him out on errands on the coldest day of the month. The heavier the snowfall, the better.

 

He remembers the not-quite smile Lee would send him, the way that his eyes would tighten imperceptibly at the corners before he turned his head away. It was a kind of honesty that Kazuya only saw directed at him, and he’d always found it somewhat amusing that someone with such a frozen mask of subservient complacency could find the cold to be unpleasant. Like attracts like, after all, and Lee had been nothing less than frigid most days.

 

 _And whose fault is that?_ His own voice sounds in his head, much smaller than he’s used to, accusatory and frighteningly well-timed despite not being directed at him at all. He’d noticed Lee shivering, and had frowned. _I’ll get you a better scarf._

 

The surprise on Lee’s face had mirrored his own feelings of bewilderment. While it had not been the first kindness between them, it had certainly been the most direct, and they both seemed rather stunned by it. To this day, Kazuya still isn’t sure what had possessed him to be so obvious, or if he’d ever done so since. Funny how he’d gone from offering him warmth to deliberately sending him out into the cold. It doesn’t really sum anything up or serve as some greater metaphor, but it feels significant nonetheless. Kazuya also doesn’t have a word for that.

 

Lee probably doesn’t have a word for it, either.

 


End file.
